still digesting, and I haven't even eaten yet

I'm still trying to digest the fall sail.  Busy with work and fall day sailing, I did not have time to work on the daily logs until weeks after the trip (though the first draft of the logs were written each evening on the cruise).  I think the time between the sail and posting allowed me to better appreciate what a really different type of journey it was for me.

Certainly more social than any other cruise with attending the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival.  And more time on land too, three days for the festival at St. Michaels and a day at Tilghman Island.

The weather was just the way I like it, a little bit of everything: great wind and blue skies; stormy; cool nights with starry skies; gusts suitable for a double-reefed main; rain; fog; calm.  I loved it all.

Though I sail alone I found myself, by chance and hospitality, three times in the company of world cruisers Michaels and Sheila on Kantala.  I still can't get over the surprising stormy evening text from them where we realized we were only a couple of miles from each other.  And then a couple of days later I saw them in St. Michaels, walking the streets of the fine little town and enjoying the company of friends MaryLou and Fred.  Later, with an approaching hurricane, we met again off Oxford.  I very much enjoyed their company.  This fall, day sailing on the Elizabeth River, I've often looked down Town Point Reach to see the snowbirds come around Lamberts Point on their way south, wondering if I might see Kantala.  I did not see the ketch and have not heard from Michael and Sheila since our lunch anchored on the Tred Avon River.  I suspect they have already gone south, and I wish them well.

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There is a fine first person story by environmental writer/photographer Dave Sherwood in the New York Times.  He fished every day this summer, and even a little into the fall, for striped bass on the Kennebec River.  With family and work commitments, he was often casting off at 4 a.m. and always back to the dock at 7 a.m.  It is an excellent, peaceful read.  

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Friends at Small Craft Advisor are putting together a piece on perfect small boat cruising areas around the country.  I was very glad to hear that Pamlico Sound, with neighboring Neuse River and Cape Lookout/Beaufort, is included.  (If you have sailed the area you will know it had to be included.)  They asked me for a few photographs.  I believe the one above, taken on a little cove on the south side of the Pamlico River near where it opens out onto the sound, is the one that they will use with the story.  

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Happy Thanksgiving